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npHE TIMES AND THE 
^ MAN, by Dr. Thomas Ed- 
ward Green, Director of 
Speaking Service, Ameri- 
can Red Cross; and Past 
President, Society of the 
Sons of the Revolution in 
the State of Illinois 




An address delivered at 
the joint celebration of 
the Patriotic Societies of 
the District of Columbia 
on February 22, 1922, in 
commemoration of the 
one hundred and ninetieth 
anniversary of the birth- 
day of George Washington 



PUBLISHED FOR THE SOCIETY 

Washington 

1922 



T 



HE TIMES AND THE 

MAN, by Dr. Thomas Ed- 
ward Green, Director of 

It 

Speaking Service, Ameri- 
can Red Cross; and Past 
President, Society of the 
Sons of the Revolution in 
the State of Illinois 




An address delivered at 
the joint celebration of 
the Patriotic Societies of 
the District of Columbia 
on February 22, 1922, in 
commemoration of the 
one hundred and ninetieth 
anniversary of the birth- 
day of George Washington 



PUBLISHED FOR THE SOCIETY 

Washington 
1922 



EI 3 /^ 



hod', ^ (h.<r-^ 



1\ 



NOTE 

This patriotic address, delivered at the 
Eighth Joint Celebration of the Sons of the 
Revolution in the District of Columbia, 
the District of Columbia Daughters of the 
American Revolution, and the District of 
Columbia Society of the Sons of the Ameri- 
can Revolution, held on the one hundred 
and ninetieth anniversary of the birthday 
of George Washington, in the auditorium 
of the Central High School in Washington, 
D. C, on February 22, 1922, has been 
printed through the courtesy of its author 
for the benefit of the members of the So- 
ciety of the Sons of the Revolution. 

The Joint Committee on Arrangements, 
under whose auspices this celebration was 
held, were as follows : 

Brig. -Gen. George Richards, Chairman; 
Doctor Marcus Benjamin, Mr. Charles P. 
Light, of the Sons of the Revolution in the 
District of Columbia. 

Colonel Frederick C. Bryan, Mr. Albert 
D. Spangler, Mr. William A. Miller, Secre- 
tary, of the District of Columbia Society 
Sons of the American Revolution. 

Mrs. Francis A. St. Clair, Mrs. G. 
Wallace W. Hanger, Mrs. Howard L. 
Hodgkins, of the District of Columbia 
Daughters of the American Revolution. 



The Times and The Man 



By Thomas Edward Green 

Director Speaking Service, Arnerican Red Cross; 

and Past President, Society of the Sons of 

the Revolution in the State of Illinois. 



We are to think somewhat for a time in this 
presence of the thing that we call history. Is it 
the regular unfolding of the chapters in a con- 
secutive story, or is it merely a haphazard col- 
lection of episodes? Is it the orderly working 
out of a manifest purpose, or is it dominated by 
contending and confusing forces, that, like the 
wild winds of the ocean, play across the surface 
of the years? Granting even the utmost dimen- 
sion to the time of man's existence on this globe, 
has there been a steady march of progress, or has 
man's story been but the ebb and flow of attain- 
ment dominated merely by the chance that tosses 
dice with circumstance? 

Is there a Vast Intelligence that dominates the 
Universe, or is this thing of which we are a part 
but a mad welter of eternal forces, insensate and 
inexorable? 

Are things as they are because they are, or be- 
cause they were meant to be ? Is the golden age 
in the past, or do we still look forward with con- 
fidence to better things? 

It is against the background of such question- 
ings as these that we come to consider for a little 
time a Great Man — admittedly the greatest man 
in all our history — admittedly one of the greatest 
men in all the ages of recorded time. 

Carlyle says that "what man has accomplished 
in the world is at bottom the history of the Great 
Men who have worked there." 

Philosophers are continually speculating as to 
the ultimate source of human greatness — whether 
it lies in the individual character, that by dint of 
masterful and clearly-defined purpose, makes use 
of things and plays them with steady hands as 
points in his accomplishment ; or whether he him- 
self is the creature of circumstance, molded and 
dominated by environment, builded into his stat- 
ure of excellence by the things that surround him. 
— by the forces that oppose him — by the breaks of 
fortune that fall to his hand. 



Is genius an endowment — the rare gift of for- 
tune to those whom it isolates and endows, or is it 
the survival of the fittest — the result of steadfast 
purpose molded bj' inflexible will — the supreme 
accomplishment of one who with deliberate in- 
tent "hitches his wagon to a star" ? 

We are face to face with the mystery of the 
ages. Our confidence rests in our faith that 
"through the ages one eternal purpose runs" — 
that somehow and somewhere in this mighty 
tangle that makes up human life "there is a power 
not ourselves that makes for 'righteousness." 

Mr. H. G. Wells in his much read "Outlines 
of History" says — "human history becomes more 
and more a race between education and catastro- 
phe." Shall we call this education, the result of 
human experience — condensed, crystalized into a 
prevailing dominant thought or purpose — what 
we call "The Times" — the atmosphere of a given 
age? 

And shall we say that when this common con- 
sciousness of mankind — struggling, contending, 
reaching forward, comes to where it would 
achieve — to where it waits for the leadership that 
shall mold and guide it into lasting accomplish- 
ment — that when the Times call for their Great 
Man, and when in answer there steps forth from 
the secret places of God he on whom the hand 
of Destiny has fallen — then we have a Turning 
Point in Human History toward which myriad 
lines of influence have converged, and out of 
which goes forth the dynamic that is to write a 
new chapter in human progress. 

Of such fashion were George Washington and 
his Times — on such a foundation of faith in the 
eternal order of things rest our veneration of to- 
day — and our abiding confidence in the America 
of tomorrow. 

It is well that we think sometimes of the be- 
ginnings from which we came and of the men 
whose brains and hearts and hands fashioned the 
structure of our nation. They were not merely 
rebels, rising against what was to them unjust 
and intolerable oppression. They were the 
builders of a new sort of community into the 
world. The modern States of Europe have been 
evolved, institution by institution, slowly and 
planlessly out of preceding things. The United 
States were planned and made. They were the 
deliberate result of a determination to construct 
a government directly suited to the needs and the 
aims of the governed. 



The American Revolution and the government 
which followed were distinct episodes in the race 
between education and catastrophe. 

For one hundred and fifty years there had been 
building up on this Western Continent a race of 
men whose roots had been planted in the wilder- 
ness where nature had taught them her grandest 
lessons. Removed from the artificial glitter of 
courts, they had sensed in the midst of broad im- 
mensity the freedom that is the birthright of 
humanity. Nature had taught them the great 
fundamental virtues. She had taught them sim- 
plicity, from their necessities. She had taught 
them self-reliance, by the dangers that menaced 
them. She had taught them industry, as they 
turned and tilled a reluctant soil. Best of all 
she had taught them independence — the love of 
liberty was in the very air they breathed, and 
so there had developed here a race of men the 
like of which the world had never known — men 
whose indomitable spirit became — 

"The energy sublime, 
Of a century burst full blossomed 
On the thorny stem of time." 

They were entirely different from the ordinary 
factors in ethnic development. They were not 
the half-tried experiments of a half-barbarous age. 
They had planted broad and deep the foundations 
of learning and had made possible a broad and 
practical education. Through the years of the 
Eighteenth Century, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, 
and William and Mary had been planting in the 
minds of men the fundamentals of expanding 
freedom. 

And so as the Times swept up to their climax 
they were dominated by a group of men who in 
thought, in culture, in civilization — who in 
everything that makes for the advancement of 
the world were the equal if not the superiors of 
the best product of the best age that the world 
had ever known. 

Here were men who had at their finger ends 
the well-digested knowledge of the centuries. 
Here were men who knew the Pandects of Justin- 
ian — the beginnings of English jurisprudence — 
the story of the struggle for representative gov- 
ernment in all the ages of the past. Naj^ — more 
than that, these men were the very embodiment of 
broad culture; their daily speech was in the pol- 
ished accents of Elizabethan English; they spoke 
the same language that Shakespeare wrote ; that 
Bacon thought — the same speech that you find in 



your King James Bible, or that rolls its matchless 
sonority through the syllables of your English 
Prayer Book. 

And when in answer to their call their Great 
Man came, and their aspirations took shape and 
struggled into form, with their first articulate 
speech these nation-makers created a Constitu- 
tion, enacted edicts, declared laws that not alone, 
mark you, were the best the world then possessed, 
but that after one hundred and fifty years of ex- 
panding, orbing time, still stand today with the 
necessity of scarcely a verbal correction or emen- 
dation — confessedly the most magnificent monu- 
ment of statecraft and erudition in the possession 
of the world. 

In the story of civilization this world has noth- 
ing that for perspicacity, for far-seeing vision, for 
consummate idealism can compare with that most 
majestic of state papers — the American Declara- 
tion of Independence. 

And lest we lose ourselves in the dangerous 
atmosphere of self-congratulation, I quote Wil- 
liam E. Gladstone, certainly no biased critic 
when he says — 

"The American Constitution is so far as I can 
see the most wonderful work ever struck off at 
a given time by the brain and the purpose of 
man." 

Such then were the Times and such the men 
that were watching for their Leader — for their 
Great Man who should mold and guide these ti- 
tanic forces into permanent organization and 
stable life — and in answer to their call he came. 

In recounting the deeds of great men we are 
mostly accustomed to tell of early disadvantages 
and hardships. We say most often, that "in 
spite of lowly birth, of poverty and of grinding 
toil, they rose to greatness." Perhaps in view of 
the world's experience we should reverse that 
judgment and should say that ia most cases it 
has been by the blessing of lowly birth, grim 
poverty, earnest endeavor and indomitable will 
— that in spite of handicap and hindrances, they 
rose to greatness. 

•For the Leader of a free people seeking liberty 
of action, and enunciating great and democratic 
principles of equality and opportunity, no man 
was ever born apparently less suited to his duty 
than George Washington. 

He was handicapped by family, by wealth, by 
religion, and by the social institutions of which 
he was a part. He had no need of honor and 
distinction, for they were all his. He had no 



need of wealth, for the broad acres of Virginia 
had made him independent. He had little need 
of effort, for scores of slaves were at his bid- 
ding. He belonged to a State Church whose 
temporal head was the King of England and 
whose fundamental tenet was obedience to the 
powers ordained of Heaven. He was the last 
man, as we judge men, to be chosen to the posi- 
tion in which he rose to such supreme heights 
that he belongs — not alone to us, but to all the 
world. Like Moses at the Court of Egypt, he 
had been training for a work and for a mighty 
mission that he dreamed not of — and when the 
hour came and the Times called, he was ready 
for the work that destiny had laid upon him. 

Where the most eloquent lips of the world 
have marshalled their proudest periods in tri- 
bute and praise, what need is there that we at- 
tempt a new tribute ? Where shall we seek the 
secret of his unique greatness? 

It was not in superior erudition, for he was 
surrounded by men, many of whom excelled him 
in education and intellectual culture. It was not 
perhaps in surpassing military genius, although 
critics have always varied as to the rank to be 
assigned him among the great captains of the 
world. It was something different and distinct 
from all these. It was the ineffable, indescrib- 
able type of moral excellence — a grandeur of 
character — a sublimity of soul that made him 
such a unique place among men that Lord 
Brougham should have written — 

"Till time shall be no more, a test of progress 
which our race has made in wisdom and virtue 
will be derived from the veneration paid to the 
immortal name of WASHINGTON." 

Men sometimes fail in the atmosphere of close 
acquaintanceship, but Thomas Jefferson said of 
him — "His integrity was most pure — his justice 
' the most inflexible I have ever known. No 
motives of interest, of friendship or of hatred 
were able to bias his decision. He was in every 
sense of the word a wise, a good and a great 
man." 

And but as yesterday Lord Bryce, revered and 
sincerely mourned in our America as in England 
overseas, said : 

"Washington stands alone and unapproach- 
able, like a snow peak rising above its fellows 
in the clear air of the morning, with a dignity, 
a constancy and purity which have made him the 
ideal type of civic virtue to succeeding genera- 
tions." 



As a General, he led his brave though impover- 
ished army to success, and so gained our price- 
less heritage of freedom. As a private citizen he 
persuaded and guided his distracted countrymen 
to a lasting Union. As President he directed an 
inexperienced Government along lines of in- 
tegrity, economy and patriotism, and left for the 
years to come a legacy of unselfishness and of de- 
votion that may well form our highest ideal. 

Guizot, the great French historian, says of 
him — 

"He did the two greatest things in statesman- 
ship a man can have the privilege of attempting 
— he maintained by peace that independence of 
his country which he had acquired by war. He 
founded a free Government in the name of the 
principles of order, and by re-establishing their 
sway. Of all great men he was the most vir- 
tuous and the most fortunate. In this world God 
has no higher favors to bestow." 

And it was Abraham Lincoln, he who spoke 
few words and weighed them well when he ut- 
tered them, who said — 

"To add brightness to the sun or glory to the 
name of Washington is alike impossible. Let 
none attempt it. In simple awe pronounce the 
name, and in its naked, deathless splendor leave it 
shining on." 

I have said in the beginning that when the 
Times call for their Great Man destiny answers 
to their cry. Shall we say then as we close, that 
the need of the Times is not the advent of a Great 
Man in an unready world, but that the challenge 
of the day is that the mass of men shall hold 
themselves ready for leadership and for obedience 
to his challenge when he comes. 

Through all the ages prophets have spoken to 
unhearing ears, and high ideals, proclaimed to a 
selfish and an ignoble generation, have been 
pearls cast before swine. The world is strug- 
gling now toward another turning point where 
either humanity, caught by the consciousness of 
a mighty vision, shall sweep onward into fresh 
achievement and wider happiness; or, clutched in 
the grip of catastrophe, shall go hurtling down 
into the abyss. 

We are calling for our Great Man. We in 
America, who coming last and suffering least in 
the mighty cataclysm that selfishness had wrought 
in the world, still find ourselves adrift upon a 
storm-tossed sea of confusion and uncertainty. It 
is my thought that when the Times are right our 
Great Man will come — that when as a people 

10 



our minds are so enlightened, our conscience is 
so secure, our ideals, and our purposes are so clean 
and pure, that we can stand unflinching in the 
presence of the White Light that gleams around 
the Infinite, and say — "We are ready in devo- 
tion, in service and in sacrifice"; then the bell of 
destiny will strike, the Man and the Times will 
meet in the Providence of God, and this Nation 
"of the people, by the people and for the people" 
shall leap forward in that supreme development 
that Washington saw in times of old. 

This month of February is a holy time in our 
commemoration. It brings the anniversaries of 
two of those great souls "of whom the world was 
not worthy," who having done all and dared all, 
stand in the clear light of Eternal Honor. 
Washington, the founder, the sage — he who laid 
broad and deep the fundaments of our nation — 
and Lincoln, the Emancipator, the preserver — 
firm in his faith, steadfast in his purpose "to do 
the right as God gives us to see the right." 

And because of them and of their trust, let 
there come to us an abiding faith in this nation 
founded by destiny, guided by God, entrusted 
with concerns and influence today of which they 
little dreamed. As we revere their rnemory, may 
we absorb some measure of their virtue; may we 
catch the spirit of their sacrifice and of their de- 
votion ; and may our lives be pledged anew to the 
Service of the Nation that we love — 

"Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great! 
Humanity with all its fears. 
With all its hopes for future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate! 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears. 
Are all with thee — are all with thee!" 



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